Pioneer dancer Malavika Sarukkai’s Beeja: Earth Seed was recently staged at Kamani Auditorium by Kalavaahini Arts Trust and HCL Concerts, with support from NCPA. The evocative solo performance, earlier premiered at the Kennedy Center in the USA and at NCPA in Mumbai, has received widespread praise for its artistic depth and emotional resonance.

A provocative dance commentary on the devastating impact of climate change on our planet earth, the 65-minute production conceptualised, choreographed and performed by Malavika Sarukkai features the great Banyan tree as the protagonist and the storyteller sootradhar who watches like a sentinel from the past. The tree is joined by the swan and the deer who also speak of the past and peep into its future as the wise and ancient inhabitants of our only living planet. They share their experiences of life on this planet earth as witness to both the beautiful and the ugly acts while expressing grave concern over its future. They urge humans - responsible for the devastation - to pause, reflect, regret and act with empathy and responsibility before it is too late. 

“Tired of story-lines from human perspectives, my creative impulse was to centre-stage subaltern voices - the tree, the deer, the swan and explore universal emotions that form the network of all life”, states the choreographer in whose works trees have appeared andreappeared frequently over the years.   

Incidentally, the idea behind Beeja germinated in the hills where Sarukkai was travelling and came across a tree pinned to a signage that read “I am the tree that held its ground”. As she shared her concept with her longtime creative collaborator Sumantra Ghosal, the filmmaker-poet penned a garland of nine poems that served as the script and narration of the production. Malavika’s dance concept was wonderfully transformed into word-images by Sumantra. ‘I am the seed that held its ground’ became the poignant leitmotif and refrain of the tree songs. 

Spread over ten sequences and nine poems, Beeja opens with the ancient Sanskrit chants of Hiranyagarbha Suktam, the myth of the golden womb that held the cosmic seed from which creation of the universe commenced. The chanting coupled with a stunning visual of the frozen frame of the dancer emerging from darkness with a ray of glowing blue light focused on her  palm set the mood for a surreal and immersive experience.  

The meditative calm gave way to a romantic mood with Varsha - the season of monsoon - as portrayed in Kalidasa’s Ritu Samhara. The rains of love and longing stir passionate play among birds and animals. Swans glided across moonlit lakes dotted with lotus blooms, symbolising the soul’s purity and wisdom that can discern water from milk, untouched by spiritual or physical impurity. The dancer’s lyrical limbs traced the myriad moods of nature with grace.

Then came Sarukkai’s Deer Song, revealing the dancer as a poet of sensitivity. In the sunlit plains, a doe leads her fawn into the forest that will be its eternal home. The baby’s wonder looking at life around contrasts the mother’s gaze - filled with love, protection, and a quiet anxiety for her child.

As the doe’s fear of insecurity unfolds, darkness descends on the earth. Greedy and reckless, humans devastate their own planet, forsaking harmony with nature. Ignoring the path of a harmonious co-existence of nature and other creatures on earth, they cause limitless harm to life all around. The wise Banyan pleads for sanity, but in vain. The dancer’s limbs that once radiated love, hope, joy and celebration now transform in an instant into dark, destructive energies as Sarukkai slips into the skin of the human.

Amidst the mounting crises on Earth, the dancer-poet reflects in her Mushroom Cloud: “There in the distance I see a vision that grows… Is it an ancient tree? Or a mushroom cloud?” —  The blurred vision hints out at the catastrophe that looms large over human civilization.

Yet, the performance ends with hope: “What untold potential still lies within this beeja — this little seed we call home. If only we choose to nourish it.” As the curtain falls, a tiny shining dot of light — planet Earth — rests on the dancer’s palm, a reminder of our fragile home. 

Like its touching and refreshing concept and script, the treatment has also been captivating in the choreography. Like the tree spreading its branches, the poetic text intertwined by passages of dance and narration made it feel like poetry in motion through the dialect of dance. 

Creative collaborator Sumantra Ghosal apart, music composer Rajkumar Bharti, sound designer Sai Shravanam and light designer Niranjan Gokhale have worked wonders. “Sound in harmony is music. Sound in disharmony is noise”, states the sound designer who has introduced ambisonic soundscape to an Indian classical dance production for the first time. And the impact has been a memorable theatrical experience of sound in 360 degrees. Similarly, the music has wonderfully assimilated use of non-traditional musical instruments of Bharatanatyam like Frame drum, Chinese wind instrument of Bawa, Cello, Sitar and Tabla. The other unusual but innovative arrangement was the effortless coming together of pre-recorded music and live orchestra; Mridangam vidwanNellai Balaji and vocalist Krithika Aravind sat on either side of the stage.  

In an era of dwindling audience presence despite the offer of free shows of classical dances, tickets were sold out two days ahead of the show in Delhi. Sarukkai held back the audience for 65 minutes in a solo recital. Speaks volumes of the senior Bharatanatyam performer who has achieved global acclaim.

By

Shyamhari Chakra

Photos courtesy: Kalavaahini Arts Trust